


Sugar Sweet

by Nabielka



Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Darling Lives, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 23:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Out west, Debbie finds herself face to face with a dead woman.





	Sugar Sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).



Debbie had only just stirred her sugar in when a movement in the corner of her eye made her look up, and stop, and stare.

It was the woman from the diner, the one who had worked with Baby. _Darling_ , he’d called her, and said it wasn’t an endearment. _Dead_ , the news had said, and her husband too, pointing a gun at Debbie. For a dead woman, she looked well, her hair glossy, her clothes neat.

Measured by any possible standard, she looked well. It was hard to look away. 

It was not necessary. She made her way over, and slid into the chair next to Debbie’s with all the assurance of an expected friend. She was smiling; her eyes crinkled. 

She said, “Sorry I’m late!”, and leaned over to kiss Debbie on the cheek. 

Debbie, caught by surprise, sat still and let her, making no response still as their knees brushed, and those pink lips moved from her cheek to her ear. 

Her breath warm on Debbie’s ear, she said, “Smile. We’re old friends.” 

Moving back, she reached out to twirl a curl of Debbie’s hair that had come loose with her finger, round and round, then tucked it again behind her ear.

Debbie remembered the diner, pouring coffee until it nearly overflowed. Remembered Buddy who’d said, _I loved her_ , and shot, remembered the parking lot, and Baby’s employer. She smiled, or tried to. 

“All right,” said the woman. She let her hand fall with an air of satisfaction and moved it to her coat, unbuttoning with one hand. “You’re not a natural at this.”

She was right – it wasn’t Debbie’s life, the lying, the rush of it, the thrill; the killing. The last few years she had spent caring for her mother, arguing with her sister. She felt her lips twist into something more genuine, if not entirely friendly. “I’m glad.”

“Don’t be,” said Darling, leaning back in her chair. The top she wore beneath stretched tight across her breasts. “Ineptitude isn’t a virtue.”

“Nor is a life of crime,” said Debbie, and reached for her coffee. It had cooled a little, but not enough, and she blew on it. Ripples across the surface. 

Darling gave a little laugh. Her smile had turned mocking. “You’re a poor liar. It thrilled you.”

She put the cup back down. It banged against the saucer. The heads of those at the nearby table turned. 

Since that night, whenever she poured anything, Debbie remembered how her hand had shaken, pouring the coffee. Shaken like her mother’s had, those last few months. Her gaze on their neighbours, she said, her voice lowered, “Having your husband try to kill me was not thrilling in the least.”

Darling considered her. Her eyes were very dark, her gaze very steady. It was nothing like having Baby look at her. “I watched the tape, you know. Your co-worker screamed; you didn’t. Only took a step back, and that’s a decent enough reaction. I remember you from the diner too.”

“A decent enough reaction,” Debbie repeated blankly. She could not look away from her eyes. They had not Baby’s softness, that was true, but there was something that reminded her of him in Darling. Or rather, not of him, poor man – still a boy, really – behind bars, but what it had felt like to be with him, on that final day, the exhilaration of their escape. 

As if reading her thoughts, Darling said, “You enjoyed driving off with the police in pursuit. You would have rammed the roadblock.”

It was true. Debbie hadn’t known it at the time, nor had the realisation come to her whenever she lay awake at night, or got into her car and turned the key. The music and the road. Baby wouldn’t have that now, and wouldn’t for years, if ever. But she knew, in a sudden burst of understanding that came without shock, that Darling was right, and felt herself go hot. 

But it was also true that there had only been two people in that car, and this woman certainly hadn’t been one of them. She frowned. “You’ve been to see Baby.” She could not call him Miles. 

It earned her only a tilt of the head. “And now I’ve come to see you.” 

Something in her face had shifted. Debbie could not quite pinpoint it, but it helped in waitressing to be able to read the customer. There seemed something cold in her face and though they sat so close, it seemed suddenly to Debbie that there was an unsurpassable gulf between them. It could not be unexpected: what could she, quiet little Debora, always helpful, never flashy, always second to her sister, ever have in common with a bank robber with Darling’s obvious ease of self? But still she felt it come upon her as a surprise.

It must have shown on her face, in her manner. Darling’s job required her to watch and predict what the bank tellers might do, whether the bystanders might get jumpy. She said, “I cared a lot for Buddy, you know.” 

Buddy too had spoken of feelings. Helplessly, Debbie glanced down. It was not possible to tell whether she was armed or not. 

But in Atlanta, Darling had shot rather than surrender. She could only suppose it likely. 

Then she thought of how her glance over might be interpreted, and felt her face burn.

To disguise it, she said, “Did you blame us?” Then she cursed herself and would have bitten her tongue to have stopped the words coming out. Buddy had hidden his gun under the newspaper. Darling would not shoot her here, she thought. There were too many people. 

But none of them were armed. 

Darling considered her. “I wanted to kill you,” she said. “Baby messed up the job. That’s what got Buddy killed and my photo all over the news channels.” Her gaze flicked down to the table. “You should drink up; it’s getting cold.”

Debbie too was going cold all over. She made no move towards the coffee. “And me?” 

“And you,” repeated Darling, and laughed. “You know, people in prison are quite hard to kill if you don’t already have someone on the inside. I couldn’t have Baby, so I might at least have you." She smiled, as though it were a joke between them. "Oldest story on earth, isn’t it? When a man messes up, the woman’s also to blame? Oh, don’t look like that!” She leaned forward, reached out with one arm, then quite obviously thought the better of it. “Obviously I’ve decided not to do anything to you. You seem quite sweet, really.”

She smiled, and her face was transformed. For a moment, her face looked so warm and open that even Debbie felt herself relax, even while a part of her wondered how many others had been beguiled by such a lovely smile before her. “But in the meantime, I did my research on you.” 

What could there be to research? Her mother’s hospital papers, Debbie’s succession of dull inadequately paid jobs, her phone calls to her sister, the music she downloaded. What a life did that add up to? She was barely even on social media. “And you think you know me?”

“A little,” said Darling, reaching over for one of Debbie’s hands. Drawing it forward, she placed one of her own over it. “I think I might be interested in finding out more. And I think you might enjoy it too.”

Her hand was very warm. It was absurd; it was only a light touch. But still it felt to Debbie like someone had covered her in a very warm blanket. 

“In fact,” she said, and her smile had grown warmer, and her eyes likewise, “I think you’re simply dying to be shown a thrill.”


End file.
